TRANSCRIPT

Will Hanke (00:00 )

All right, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Marketing Panes the podcast where we talk with real window treatment and awning service providers or business owners about their successes and struggles related to marketing their business. I’m your host, Will Hanke and today we’re joined by two industry leaders helping dealers cross over into the world of in-house fabrication. So first is Randy Meppelink.

Randy runs a fourth generation family business based in Michigan that doesn’t just sell machines, they also teach fabrication, whether it’s building roller shades from scratch, improving your current workflow or launching new products like outdoor shades. Randy and his team help window treatment pros go from retailer to full on fabricator. He brings a rare perspective, real life experience in fabrication and

hands-on product knowledge. His facility doubles as a working fabrication space where businesses can test machines, learn the ropes, and get hands-on experience. Andrew Meyer, meanwhile, represents Indiana Coated Fabrics, one of the last U.S.-based manufacturers of coated-shade fabrics. While they’re known for blackout materials, ICF goes far beyond that.

They work with some of the biggest names in the industry, providing custom converting and finishing services for companies that want to apply ICF’s precision to their own textiles. For 60 years, ICF has supplied everyone from massive commercial brands to independent dealers. Andy’s mission is to help more US fabricators, big and small, access top tier materials and stand out with local made quality.

Together, they’re showing us what it really takes to bring fabrication in-house, adapt to industry shifts, and build a more resilient, profitable window treatment business. Guys, thanks for being on today. And I’m a… Yeah, and I’m out of breath now, right?

Randy Meppelink (02:03 )

Yeah. Thanks, Will. We appreciate the invite. You bet.

Andrew Meyer (02:03 )

Thank you. Yes.

Randy Meppelink (02:08 )

Hahaha!

Andrew Meyer (02:08 )

That

was quite the intro. ⁓

Will Hanke (02:12 )

Yeah,

so, so let’s jump in. Randy and Andy, could you each introduce yourselves briefly and tell us a little bit about things that maybe we don’t know yet?

Randy Meppelink (02:23 )

Well, thank you very much. And like you said, I am fourth generation. My family immigrated from the Netherlands. they went from Holland to Holland. So real original, right? We went from Holland, the country, to Holland, Michigan, the city. So place they felt comfortable. But a lot of people may not know a couple of things.

I’ve been in the industry really a long time since I was a child, you know, picking up or helping my grandfather. You know, we were fabricating drapery rods and, you know, shades way back in the 70s and stuff. but fast forward a little bit. One of the things that some people know and maybe a lot of don’t know, but there was a mini blind that was sold by a company called Leveler.

for years, and they had a paint system on there that was a dust guard paint that repelled dust. And I was the inventor behind that. And so that was ⁓ one of mine. so that’s something that you asked of people may not know about me. That’s one. It’s not really out there. You’d have to do the research to find it. yeah, that’s what it And I’ve been involved in a lot of product development with companies that are, whether it’s

Will Hanke (03:19 )

nice.

Have a cool.

Randy Meppelink (03:39 )

Hunter Douglas, Levolor, Comfortex, used to be Comfortex. Over the years, where I’ve contracted and done individual engineering products for them. So there’s many products that are out in the industry today that I have touched in one way or another in that product design. So yeah.

Will Hanke (03:58 )

That’s awesome,

awesome. Very cool, how about you Andy?

Andrew Meyer (04:01 )

⁓ Yes, so my name is Andrew Meyer here with ICF. While Randy and I do share the same barber as well as facial barber, I didn’t realize we’re both sporting the go-to today. I’ve been with ICF for about five years now. Tim Foster, whom a lot of the industry folk know, brought me into kind of… ⁓

kind of reinvigorate how our approach was and how we’re going to market with what we do. A lot of people in the industry know ICF and we’ve been kind of doing this blackout material for a long time. However, we do a lot of other things. Outside of shading, we do an art and entertainment ⁓ materials. We do converting work for various shade fabrics as well as other industry materials.

⁓ And we work in the industrial sector as well in making fabrics that get used in various applications. know, everything from tarmacs at the airport to your fabric HVAC materials. So lots of different things that we touch. The bulk of what we do is in the shading world. So which is why we’ve got great relationships with people like Randy and many others out there.

And as you kind of mentioned in the intro, we work with some of the biggest names in the shading industry, all the way down to the small mom and pops. And that’s what’s a lot of fun, is to be able to kind of work with both ends of the spectrum in what we do in providing fabrics to the industry.

Will Hanke (05:27 )

that. love that. Randy, you mentioned that your company is four generations strong. What does it what does keeping it in the family, you know, kind of mean and for how you serve the industry today?

Randy Meppelink (05:39 )

So family dynamics are extremely unique when you’re dealing with four generations in the business. Me being the third, but the fourth generation now working in the company and managing. One of the things that we did, and we ran out of kids, my wife and I, we created different divisions within the company so that they work together, but they don’t really cross over.

Andrew Meyer (05:58 )

You

Randy Meppelink (06:06 )

And that way it helps with the family dynamics piece of that because they’re directly responsible for their own division, whether it’s on the machinery side or whether it’s fabrication side or whether it’s supply, the different things like that involve. So that’s one of the important pieces with a family business, I think, is to have some separation for each of the members.

Will Hanke (06:27 )

For sure. Yeah.

Yeah, I like that. My daughter works with me and she’s, it’s tough to keep the two things separated sometimes between dad and boss. ⁓ But so I know about the family dynamics a little bit at least. So ⁓ Andy, you mentioned that your business is, or that the business is 60 years, been around for quite a while now.

Randy Meppelink (06:41 )

Yes.

Will Hanke (06:52 )

How has it evolved over the decades?

Andrew Meyer (06:55 )

Yeah, so ICF actually started by Bill Haldowing. He worked at a very large, just not gonna name him, very large company that did some window shading, but they also did movie screen projection screen fabrication. they had started to slow down the shading side of their business, so he actually started ICF to kind of fill that void. And…

ICF started as our name says in long format, Indiana Coated Fabrics, we coated fabrics and we made various coated textiles to service, like I said, shading industry and then morphed into projection screen industry. And then somewhere in the 90s, early to mid 90s is when we actually got our fi